An emperor slept here (and you can too for less than $120 a night)

Napoleon slept here – not that “NB woz here” is scratched on any wall at Spain’s Parador de Argomaniz, and we’re sure he wasn’t in our bed (it’s on the large side).

But the Little Corporal did leave behind solid evidence of his sleepover. It’s said he helped preserve the grand coffered ceiling in the one-time barn, now restaurant, of the circa 1712 building just outside Vitoria-Gasteiz, capital of Basque Country, just over an hour’s drive from the food and beach playground of San Sebastian.

In Napoleon’s (possibly small) footsteps: Parador Argomaniz with its traditional porthole windows.Credit:

Napoleon apparently hid out and rested here during the Peninsular War, after being wooed by both its comfortable rooms (it was a Renaissance palace) and its strategic handiness (from its upper floor you can see the plains of Vitoria, allowing him to – or so he thought – better plan his battles). Plus it housed a granary – rations for his hungry men.

Parador de Argomaniz is one of Spain’s 93-strong legion of paradores – unique or historic buildings converted into reasonably priced three- to five-star hotels. The state-run parador network dates back to the early 1900s, and it’s a win-win: income raised helps preserve and maintain Spain’s historic buildings, and visitors get to stay somewhere novel – a castle, a fort, a palace, a monastery – and sample the in-your-face history only places such as these can offer.

So we find ourselves conjuring both Bicorns on shadowy staircases (strategically placed candles help) and echoes of horses stamping with pre-battle nerves as we wander through the parador gardens on a misty morning.

The Little Corporal.Credit: Getty Images

Our second-floor room has terrace views, wood panelling, a mix of new and antique furniture and a large bathroom with a tub and terracotta tiles. But if the parador’s stone walls could talk, we would want its restaurant, with its traditional porthole windows and magnificent ceiling that stopped Napoleon in his tracks, to do most of it. It’s clear, though, that Aletegu, with its low-key decor and central buffet for breakfast, prefers its food, rather than its history, to do the talking.

Anchovies from Bermeo (a nearby seaside town) on toast; cream of leeks, potatoes, cod and garlic prawns (yum); duck breast with blueberry sauce; an “emblematic” mushroom cake with champignon, and goxua, a sponge cake with cream and caramel, are local, hearty and flavourful.

We are here for a two-night stay, and unlike our dozen or so fellow mid-week guests who are road-tripping from parador to parador, we’re without a car. So when we wake to sunny skies we take a tip from reception and head for the 50-minute circular (“you cannot get lost, trust me”) hiking track that begins just a short walk away.

The sign at the start of the Zabalgana por el bosque or “through the forest” trail is intriguing for Australian eyes in what it suggests we may encounter. There are the meek: rabbits, owls, a woodpecker and a red-breasted bullfinch; and the not-so-meek – foxes and buzzards. There are the puzzling, the tejon meles meles, or European badger (a 65-80 centimetre carnivore with a strong, elongated body, small head and short neck); the possum-like pine marten, and the cat-like genet. And then, there’s the downright scary: a jabali (wild boar).

It takes less than a minute before we have our first dramatic encounter, a small black and white snake slithers ahead of us in this silent forest of giant oaks and trailing vines. Around every bend is a surprise; an ancient trunk split by lightning; pinky mushrooms and ghostly toadstools; a slug the size of my hand; dragonflies, mists of butterflies; moss-covered fallen logs; stands of the ancient prunus spinosa better known as blackthorn or sloe; clumps of shiny grasses, then trailing ivy. There’s scat on the path. We hope it’s from deer.

Sunflower fields … past their prime but still stunningly beautiful.Credit:

And then we’re stopped in our tracks by a lonely grave, a simple iron cross holding a picture of a solemn-looking man in a 1950s suit. This man, we’re told later, died more than 140 years after the Bonaparte brothers tore through the area, felled not by cannon or musket shot, but by a giant oak.

We come to a slight rise, where a wooden bench has been fashioned, possibly to catch those overcome at the vista ahead. Hill after hill is covered with sunflowers – well past their prime in October, but still staggeringly beautiful.

If we’d been just weeks earlier they’d have been at their sunniest, but then we would probably have had to share them with others.

Spain’s summer crowds are long gone. It’s just us and the wilting yellow suns that go on forever amid the echoes of long-ago battlefields.

The writer travelled to Spain at her own expense and stayed at the Parador de Argomaniz as a guest of the Spain Tourism Board and Small Luxury Hotels. Standard rooms from €70 ($117) a night in the low season; from €124 ($207.50) in the warmer months. See paradores.es